From the very first page you know that you are in the hands of a skilful writer. The descriptions are always very well done, and the ‘voice’ of each character is distinctive.

The theme of the book is about the horrors of war, and how these horrors affect the innocent, particularly women. The book goes to some very dark places and isn’t for the faint hearted. I wasn’t quite sure why the author chose to write about these two particular time periods. Whatever parallels there might have been weren’t entirely clear to me.

I found that there were slightly too many changes in first person POV. Some characters were more interesting than others, and I wondered if they were really necessary. Also sometimes we saw the same scene again from another character’s POV, when I would have preferred the story to go to the next stage.

I have been left wanting to read a non fiction book about the Crusades as a result. It’s a period of history I know very little about, and I’m now intrigued.